Category - tax avoidance

The UK’s aid watchdog has highlighted how the Department for International Development could more effectively help poor countries to tackle the tax avoidance and evasion that rob them of billions, in a new report welcomed by Christian Aid.

Impoverished country governments could be up to $61 billion worse off in 2016 as a result of the crash in global commodity prices and strengthening of the US dollar. This is reducing government revenue and increasing the relative size of debt payments in foreign currencies.

New European Commission proposals, intended to curb Google-style tax avoidance by multinationals, do not go far enough in helping developing countries keep track of, and tax, the financial manoeuvring of major international companies operating within their borders, warns Christian Aid.